Other Welcome to issue 8 of Spontaneity, where everything connects. Click on the links and get lost in a creative dialogue between media – and if you’d like to be part of it, get in touch. Enjoy!
Billy yes by Julia Web I am all about Billy, and Billy I hope is all about me he breathes into my hair my scalp tingles warm Billy yes yes Billy yes I aim to please I do what Billy says let Billy guide let Billy tease and dress me in his love of words and rouse me with his tongue Billy Billy Billy the name rolls off my tongue like autumn leaves scattering on an empty street rolling and golden Billy this Billy that Billy in my head his ideas needling behind my eyes Billy’s hands everywhere as he talks as … Continued Read more
Wish you were here by Maureen Curran Living – living takes you away from sitting (Louise Gluck Twilight) I need to be going somewhere to break out of antipathy, to resist. So we pack the car, lock up our house stop to buy tomorrow’s breakfast on the way. Before we eat together, we fill the room with the clatter of pans, recalibrate to the tumbling play of six cousins. There are my sister’s girls, my brother’s boy. We three feel it, how January became this heavy month of leaving Brian is in Alberta tonight, Aidan, John. Peter’s talking Perth again for … Continued Read more
We all go into hiding by Marie Hanna Curran We all go into hiding When the wind blows, Return from our secret Blinded places In the aftermath Proclaiming: Had we known And seen the damage as it happened We’d have skipped into action, Only We all go into hiding When the wind blows. Read more
The Book of Learning, by Elizabeth Rose Murray by ‘The Book of Learning is about 12-year-old Ebony Smart. After the death of her beloved grandpa, Ebony’s world is turned upside down. Sent to Dublin to live with an aunt she didn’t know existed, she soon discovers that her new home, 23 Mercury Lane, is full of secrets. Learning that she is part of an ancient order of people who have the power to reincarnate, Ebony quickly discovers that a terrible evil threatens their existence. With just her pet rat, Winston, and a mysterious book to help her, she must figure out why her people are disappearing and how to … Continued Read more
So carefully naked by Bill Wolak, translated by Gabriel Rosenstock So carefully naked, all her flesh like wildflowers unfurling exultant after a downpour, she waits stretched out across fresh sheets eager as silence. He enters her more gently than a whisper, like a snowflake balanced on a pine needle Nocht Chomh Cúramach Sin Nocht chomh cúramach sin a colainn go léir mar bhlátha an mhóinéir á n-oscailt go ríméadach tar eis bailce, í ag feitheamh sínte ansin ar bhraillíní úra chomh cíocrach leis an tost. Tá sé inti anois níos téiglí ná cogar, mar chalóg shneachta ar spíonlach giúise Read more
The shapes bodies can make by Emmaleene Leahy I follow ragged paths, seeking cavernous places, the empty space where she used to be and water black as death. One last swim before I go under. I need to float to connect with her; we swam in amniotic fluid. Windswept clouds swirl across the sky. I let the vortex withdraw me from the muffled world, distant. Silence, ghosts hide, swallowed by a decision. I allow water to consume me. We practised relentlessly. The shapes two bodies can make when suffering a reverse vertigo, an addiction to heights. We’d float and glide through the air, sweating hands grabbed wrists. Imaginary … Continued Read more
On finding an old photograph in a drawer by Stephanie Conn I am searching for a likeness in the photograph; trying to suggest a question to the square’s grey tones – but every edge is black and white; even your hair’s subtle waves are as pronounced as the craggy rocks behind your head. Perhaps there is something familiar in the broad forehead, but this is not your smile. Your cheeks were not these apples where the lips end. Your legs might have been thinner once, your shoulders may well have carried less, your hips would still have been your own. All this is possible – but these shaded eyes, albeit squinting … Continued Read more
Day trip by An Rasiah Lily was unsure of her father’s idea to go all the way to the seaside by motorbike. She had never ridden with him without her mother also present. Back in Colombo she had felt secure on the bike, snug between them both, protected from the dangers that surrounded. But that was a long time ago; now she would be exposed. She could tell from her mother’s expression, as she waved goodbye, that she was worried too. It had been two months since Lily last saw her father. It had been an awkward visit to his London flat, just before Christmas. Her … Continued Read more
Creases by Clare Archibald I went back for my glove. I’d dropped it outside. After I’d made what I thought was my final point and stormed off. I knew you’d be waiting, smirking the seconds through on your imagined clock-face of me. She’ll be back, she can’t keep away, only thinks I’m bad for her when she’s tired, or sober, or scared, or disgusted. I’ll just wait here, sip my pint and she’ll appear. Wet and exhausted and fired up, all because of me. It could have happened like that. It has before. Except I wore gloves, not kid ones, but cracked and smooth … Continued Read more
My lover’s arc by Linda Rose Parkes The glass will crack, the glass will shatter, I tell him … thwack door truly shut, his thoughts already going before him down the ivy-walled path towards traffic. Sounds of his presence: shoe-scuffed gravel, bag flung down: mind flung wide in all its cupboards. But when he’s not slamming or pushing to without the honing will of a handle, he’s always leaving the door ajar as if in fear of his own absence from other rooms where voices whisper some moonlit piece of information which turns the tides. And how often would I kiss his … Continued Read more
Angel by Anne O'Leary She watches their eyes, windows to the soul. Most look down, at their books, their phones, the floor. But occasionally someone looks up, reading the ads that line the tube carriages, or staring into space, and then she has them. It’s like being dragged into a tornado, round and round, deeper and deeper, through pain and sorrow and rage and joy. Sometimes it’s easy to pinpoint the problem, so all-consuming there’s no room for any other thought. Other times, she has to rifle through dull, aching memories as if searching someone else’s suitcase. Once she’s found it, she can help. … Continued Read more
Driftwood by Alison Wells Outside the window washed out watery skies of battleship blue, clouds uncertain, unfurling, stoically flimsy, parading on. I’m lucky to have a window. Of course, it was all arranged, once they knew. No more clamour clanking trolley legs and bed pans, no more slicing the night into ward rounds, faces peering into disintegrating sleep, re-presenting that nightmare of awareness with their careful invasions. I think I can hear the waves from here. Sea shore body, rotten seaweed slick, stones relentless, monuments of them piled up in remembrance. And this strange and stubborn breathing forward and back, forward and back, the … Continued Read more
Palette by Simon Lewis All you have known is milky white and it satisfied you since you arrived but now it is time for oranges, yellows, browns to be added to the palette. They are microwaved, mushed and stirred. With a careful stroke, I scoop a little drop and paint it on your tongue with a plastic spoon. Read more
The swimming pool by Peter Donnelly Quick sheet lighting across The floor of the swimming pool: The dance of refracted sunlight was Effected through the blue, effulgence-full Vacation. I parodied myself, noting The pool’s length and breadth like A sonnet gaining its floating, Essential awareness of dimension. I broke And swam this aquatic skin; and I need Its strictness; I need its shape, balance, Stretch which serve to feed Its full, filling pulsation of significance. There is voltage encased in it all And it frazzles alive on brick wall. Read more
